Naren Ramakrishnan, professor of computer science in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech and director of the Discovery Analytics Center, was reappointed as the Thomas L. Phillips Professor of Engineering by Virginia Tech President Tim Sands and Interim Executive Vice President and Provost Cyril Clarke.

The Raytheon Corporation created the Thomas L. Phillips Professorship in 1992 in honor of its retired chief executive officer and chair of its board of directors. Phillips received his bachelor's degree in 1947 and a master's degree in 1948 from Virginia Tech. He joined Raytheon upon his graduation as an electronics design engineer. 

Ramakrishnan has held the title of Phillips Professor since 2013. 

A member of the Virginia Tech community since 1998, Ramakrishnan is one of the top researchers in the theory and practice of data analytics, the science of finding interesting and actionable patterns hidden in massive data sets. He has published 17 edited books/proceedings and book chapters, 150 journal articles, and 194 peer-reviewed conference/workshop papers. 

Ramakrishnan’s research has garnered grants and contracts with combined funding of $78.7 million with more than $37 million as principal investigator. He serves/has served on the editorial boards of six journals in his field, including the ACM Transactions on Knowledge Discovery from Data and IEEE Computerthe flagship publication of the IEEE Computer Society

At Virginia Tech, Ramakrishnan served as associate department head for graduate studies in the Department of Computer Science from 2008 to 2012. In 2011, he became the founding director of the Discovery Analytics Center at Virginia Tech. He also led the creation of Virginia Tech’s graduate certificate in urban computing supported by a highly competitive National Science Foundation National Research Traineeship (NRT) grant. In addition, Ramakrishnan has served as the advisor to 23 Ph.D. graduates and 17 master's degree graduates. 

Ramakrishnan has received numerous honors and professional recognitions, including Virginia Tech’s Alumni Award for Excellence in Research in 2011, and Dean’s awards for Excellence in Teaching in 2005 and Research in 2010. In 2009, Ramakrishnan was named an Association for Computing Machinery Distinguished Scientist. 

Ramakrishnan is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery, Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers' Computer Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. He received his master's degree from Anna University in India and a Ph.D. from Purdue University, which named him a “40 under 40” alumnus in 2010.

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